


Chiaroscuro

by cat_77



Series: Shadowverse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Captivity, Dehumanization, Disfigurement, Dismemberment, Experimentation, Fusion - Highlander, Gen, Gore, Language, Original Character Death(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is an anomaly and, as such, should be studied for the sake of science.  Unfortunately, science can both create and destroy, depending upon the wielder. </p><p> </p><p>Second in the Shadowverse series.  This is still the Avengers, but in a Highlander-like reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the same universe as [Shadows](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1175280) and set immediately after the events in that story. Think Avengers in a Highlander-like world. Think also that I do mean every one of those warnings. This one is far darker than what I usually write.

Telling their team about their not quite standard abilities had proven interesting to say the least. Instead of being reassured by the innate healing and imminent recovery from death itself, their teammates became even more protective. Natasha would have called that counter-intuitive, but there was a level of sense to it, or at least there was when she demanded an explanation for the way Steve hovered at her side during nearly every battle and she had caught Stark designing new and interesting weapons with the only common denominator to them all being bladed edges.

Rogers claimed he now knew her vulnerabilities. He knew she was more at risk post battle than during. If she was injured, her body took the first available resting period to concentrate her energies on healing and therefore needed cover. If she were killed, one of her own kind could take advantage of that fact and make it permanent or - even worse in her mind - she could be caught by the paparazzi that tended to swarm after any event and they could catch her inevitable recovery and require an explanation. As such, he had assigned himself to be her cover save for the times he was absolutely needed elsewhere and, even then, either himself or one of the others would rush to her and Clint's sides as soon as inhumanly possible to assist.

The one thing they thankfully did not assist with were the battles themselves. She didn't mean the usual Avengers/Save the World type ones, those everyone gave everything they had and would continue to do so. No, they stepped back and let her fight the good fight when it was one of her own kind, one on one, blade against blade, necks on the line.

Of course, she did not necessarily tell them how often that may or may not actually happen. Any bad guy with a bladed weapon was suspect as far as they were concerned and she was so very tempted to convince them they were all for her, to push them back and fight the way she was meant to. The problem with that was that Steve had seen a real Challenge and knew the aftermath, which was definitely something she couldn't fake. Another problem, of course, was Clint. He knew the full score what with being one of the orchestrators, and would pick and choose how much to reveal just as she would, and they really needed to work on a communication system for when they needed the backup or not as well as when they really just wanted to duke it out on their own.

Twice in recent battles she had sensed one of her own kind around, and twice she had found them with an arrow to a non-vital body part, hobbling away from the scene and in no way attempting to engage. Of course thrice had she actually encountered their kind without his purview, and had to choose for herself if she should take the potential Challenge or evade. She had let the Hulk knock one out of play, disabled another and continued with the matter at hand at the time, and actually took down the final one, hiding the transfer of energy that followed in a well-timed cascade from one of Thor's attacks.

The fact that they had a so-called God of Thunder on their team actually came in handy more often than one would suspect. Cap hit a power line with his shield, everyone assumed Thor had simply vanquished something nearby. Iron Man missed and a wayward shot hit a transformer, everyone assumed Thor had simply vanquished something nearby. She or Clint had an electrical storm of Immortal energy to contend with, everyone assumed Thor had simply vanquished something nearby. 

Which is why she rather lamented the fact that he was clearly airborne when she felt the approach of one of her own during a battle at the edge of a wharf, ships thankfully long gone or abandoned, much like the buildings that surrounded them. The sensation was just enough of a distraction to cause her aim to go wide by at least eight degrees, which normally wouldn't prove problematic when the target was the size of a small apartment complex, but was quite troublesome when said target's scales held a truly impressive reflective capability.

The shot bounced and hit a support for a non-existent phone line. The structure splintered and shattered and a sizable chunk of it headed straight for her. She dodged, but not enough, and stopped herself from landing face first even as the debris stopped her from actually being able to move. Her calf was caught, well and truly, the bone as broken as the wood atop it.

She swore, low and violent, even as she heard Stark report she was down and an unknown was approaching. The suit was the only thing making a dent in had been monster besides Mjolnir, and Steve was firmly on the other side of the beast. One gun was knocked from her hand from the fall and the other was almost out of ammo, but her gauntlets were prepped and primed.

"I've got her," Clint promised, slightly breathless through the comm. 

She could hear him running even as she heard whoever it was approach, and she looked up to meet the arrival, wishing she was surprised that he already had a blade out. "Come on, it's not really a fair fight if I'm already trapped," she wheedled.

The man smiled, the action as greasy and filthy as he was. "Why do you think I'm making my move now?" he asked blithely.

She fired a charge from her gauntlet, and watched him spasm from it briefly before he recovered. "That wasn't very nice," he growled. He stepped forward, gait clearly off, sword now swung around into an attack position.

She readied another shot but found it entirely unnecessary as the man came to an abrupt halt, arrow lodged soundly in his throat. She didn't know if it went through enough to sever the spinal column and put an end to it, but it turned out not to matter when the shaft itself separated, split outward with double blades, and then snapped back together like a pair of scissors. 

The man's head rolled from his body and landed barely an arm's length away from her. She glared upwards at her would-be savior and warned, "Clint..."

He was already moving though, bow slung over his back to free his arms. "You're going to want to be clear for this," he replied, crouched at her side. He hefted the support upwards and she barely managed to wriggle free before the first spark hit.

Energy wracked her body and she barely heard a voice over the comm ask Thor if he could cover them before it outright fried. She turned her head to the side as she convulsed to see Barton writhing beside her, cascades of blue dancing along his recurve while he fell forward to his knees. She gripped his hand both because it was there and so that she had a tether to him for when this ended because, really, a piece of her mind was an understatement for what she was going to give him.

Images from the unknown man's life raced before her, rushed and half-formed, a curiosity to be discussed with her partner later in hopes of figuring out just who he was, why he came, and why he chose her. There were symbols and sigils and books and files and enough that she wanted to know more, even if she hadn't known such things existed moments before. It was enough of a diversion that when the energy finally subsided, she lay there hand in shaking hand with the person she knew far too well, and only asked, "Stark give you some new toys?"

Clint tried to sit up, but notably did not let go even as he clambered to his knees. "Well, you know, improve upon what works best and all that," he groaned. He rubbed the back of his neck, and then scrubbed his palm over his statically fried hair before he gave it up for a lost cause and simply tried to catch his breath again. "He based it off of the line for my grappling hook, changed the emergency release and made it a little more airborne." It made sense, even if it's existence had already proved infuriating. At least it gave Barton an upper hand in a battle without needing to resort to a short sword hidden in his quiver as he had done on more than a single mission in the past.

The ground shook at Thor's arrival and they heard him promise, "I have them, though I believe their communication devices are not functional at this time." He crouched beside them and asked, "Are you safe here? Has the danger passed?"

Clint waved him off before Natasha could. "Yeah, yeah, I rescued the princess, now go slay the dragon."

Thor chuckled, deep and true as he stood once more. "Aye, I will contend with the dragon, though you must contend with your princess," he smiled. With a wink, he added, "I fear I have the simpler task."

Thor flew off as soon as it was obvious both were at least semi-mobile, and Clint flopped over with an exaggerated groan. "Did Thor just tell a joke?" he asked, ignoring the quiver that was still obviously in the way.

"Thor tells jokes all the time," Natasha replied. She shifted her injured leg and found it still to be in the midst of the healing process. "Most people just don't get them."

Her comm crackled and fizzed and died again, and she flinched from the little shocks that danced along the inner rim of her ear. She reached to remove it, but stopped herself as something new danced along her senses. At the very edge of her vision, she saw more than heard it: a van squealing around the corner and headed their way. It was most definitely not SHIELD-approved transport, that much was obvious from both the bright white color and the logo of a no doubt less than reputable company on the side.

"Run, Clint," she ordered. She tried to stand, but her leg in no way would hold her weight yet. "Run!" she repeated, damn near pushing him away.

As always, he refused to listen. He made it to his feet and yanked her arm up and over his shoulder, taking more than a fair share of her weight. He shuffled-stumbled, mostly dragging her, mostly cursing that a fireman carry was out of the picture what with the quiver and bow already strung along his back.

The van cut them off the way she knew it would, and she tried to fire a gauntlet only to discover that it too had been destroyed by the same force that took out her comm. She reached for one of Clint's spare sidearms instead and he took the other and together they fired at the first thing stupid enough to try to crawl out of the cargo hold. It was a distraction though, and she was pissed at herself for falling for it as another van came up behind them, opened its doors, and took aim.

She felt the numbing properties of the darts more than the prick of the tips piercing her skin and turned to see her partner hit at least as much as she was herself. She let go of Clint despite his protests, and shoved as hard as she could. He stumbled and tripped and nearly faceplanted onto the pier. He was clearly already under the effects though, slow and sluggish, words slurred as he promised to kill those who would try such a thing. His bow was in his hand and he fired a shot that went wide as his legs gave way and he collapsed to the hard cement and rotting wood. She kicked him once despite the pain and he either got with the program or was seriously limp enough for it to work, as he rolled towards the murky water, landing with an audible splash.

She tried to follow, leg giving out fully until she flat out crawled, but it was too late and even she knew it. She felt more darts, heard footsteps and splashing waves, knew she was close, and knew she wasn't going to make it. Her last thought before she gave in to oblivion was that Barton was going to be pissed to have been drowned again.

* * *

She awoke with the type of gasp that was usually reserved for coming back from the dead, and questioned both what they had given her and what they had done to her while she was out. At least part of that was answered when she took in her surroundings, deciding not to be subtle about it as her reawakening had already given her away.

To say she didn't like what she found would have been a major understatement. She was in what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a basement, partially finished and partially left with exposed supports and brickwork, everything covered with opaque plastic like a bad horror movie. She was restrained in a way she would have found impressive had it been anyone save for her subjected to the method: metal frame, bound at the wrists, ankles, and waist, double-looped ring about her throat that was affixed to the top of the frame through a bar that rested against the back of her head, similar to bars placed at semi-even intervals at the front and back like a cage of sorts. The structure of the frame seemed mobile, as though it could be spun on its axis if needed to flip her this way or that while still keeping her secure. Her leg was still broken, but healing rapidly, with the pain the action caused enough to keep her apprised of the progress. She was completely nude save for the barest modesty of her undergarments, but that was not the most troubling troubling aspect of it all.

No, most troubling was the man across from her, bound similar and in a similar state of undress. His eyes were drooped and shadowed, his skin ashen where it wasn't spattered with blood or scraped through with still healing wounds. One of his thighs was flayed open, muscle exposed and skin pinned back on itself as his body struggled to heal. He was Immortal, like her, and he was the closest to dead she had ever seen one of her own kind while their head was still attached.

"Where are we?" she demanded.

"Hell," he replied. She would have called it cliched if it hadn't seemed like the man truly meant it. He struggled to raise his head, a dark bruising along his throat that made her nervous. "You woke up much quicker than the others. They'll like that."

"Who?" she asked, and hoped the man was with it enough to realize she meant both the others and their captors.

He snorted, unwilling or unable to answer, so she took it upon herself to examine the room and search for clues for herself. There was a table off to the side, a loose drape over it but the fabric was not enough to conceal all of the various instruments atop it. Standard torture for the most part, though the short sword was definitely worrisome and furthered her belief that whoever had her knew exactly what she was. To the side were three more cages such as her own, each streaked with a rust color that she was fairly certain was not from corroding metal. Behind them were lumps of cloth and plastic and what she deemed disposal methods for when their time together came to an inevitable end. 

The cement floor held the faint hint of bleach which thankfully overpowered almost all other smells, but the cleaning agent had not actually ridded the area of telltale stains completely. She knew the shapes too well, had created them herself more than once in the past. Collapsed bodies, torn apart and most importantly decapitated. It made her take a second look at the room and find the bare minimal amount of metal, everything wood and plaster and brick and insulated plastic and far from conductive save for the cages themselves. There were scorch marks decorating it all, and she knew she and her companion were not the first of their kind to serve as guests, just as she had a fair idea what had happened to the past visitors.

"How long?" she asked, not sure if she'd be granted an answer.

The man shook his head, metal slicing new wounds and reopening old. "I'm honestly not sure. I was at my studio - I am, or was, an artist - and it was a Tuesday. I know because we always have coffee with Kathy on Tuesday. I didn't get to have my coffee. I woke up here instead." His words were stuttered and slow, held pauses where there should be none, breaths mid-word as if unused to the task of speaking.

Natasha thought about that for a moment, wondered if the man was a plant or a victim or a damned good actor who took his methods seriously. Finally, she answered, "It was Saturday when I was taken. Either they've had you for four days, or far longer." She was betting longer based upon the extent of his wounds, lack of immediate healing, and general attitude but, again, it was possible that he was simply weak or simply a pawn at play.

He didn't seem inclined to say more, and she was perfectly comfortable with the silence. She assumed that they were being watched or recorded remotely in some way, and gave whoever it was that held her credit for the devices not being immediately noticeable. With that in mind, she still made an attempt to free herself anyway.

Twenty minutes and a healing dislocation later, she had made no headway towards her goal. The structure she was held within was quite secure, and the positioning of her limbs at their slightly akimbo angles limited the amount of force she could apply towards the task. In truth, even if she had managed to free a single hand, she would likely have hours worth of work to remove herself from the contraption completely, and she highly doubted that time was on her side.

As if to prove her suspicions correct, she heard the click and slide of multiple locks and heavy doors, the scrape of metal bearings on concrete, and the murmur of voices that fell quiet long before their owners strode into view.

There were two men, both dressed in scrubs and surgical gowns, feet and heads covered, gloves on, and faces obscured by standard masks. One hit a button just out of view from the doorway and there was a click of static before the second one commented, "The female is awake. We can begin."

"Who are you?" Natasha asked, not really expecting an answer.

The man ignored her, tone clearly clinical as he dictated, "Subject was injured prior to obtainment, injury to the right lower fibula, now at an approximately eighty-five percent healing ratio. Injury should not prove detriment to study."

He approached and eyed her dislocated/relocated thumb and scraped wrist, but stayed sufficiently back to make no contact. "What do you want?" she asked instead.

He picked up a pair of goggles and handed them to his associate, retaining a pair for himself. "Subject injured self further in a minor manner, likely in an unsuccessful attempt at escape. This injury should also not prove to be a detriment to study. Right thumb and wrist, bruising remains, assistant will fully document."

The second man used what looked to be a digital camera and snapped a few pictures of her hand, and then a few more of her leg before he set the device down again. "Do you need my assistance, or shall I see to Subject A14?" the man asked.

The first man held up a hand and gestured him near. "We have only come across one other female to date, you may wish to witness this. It is possible your observations will be of note." A nod and the small table was pushed closer, wheels squeaking against the hard ground, drape now fully removed. An insulated box was opened and wires were positioned with detached professionalism, a sticky pull against her skin. "We will begin as before: heart, liver, lungs. Please advise if you notice differences from previous subjects."

Natasha rather did not like the sound of that. She also rather did not like the way her cage was flipped to be parallel to the floor like an exam table. When the first implement, roughly awl-like in shape and size, was poised above her chest, she decided she really was not going to like this at all.

* * *

Natasha awoke to a scream and was surprised it was not her own. She did not immediately open her eyes, and she was unable to breathe deeply as her lungs were still under repair. They had let her revive between each test, but reviving and fully healing were two desperately different things. Her body was agony, pain a tangible and visceral thing, open wounds struggling to close even as her own blood was tacky and warm against her chilled body. They had given her a cursory rinse with tepid water after each "experiment" but the blood still sluggishly dripped, or dried and flaked with itching annoyance where they didn't quite reach it, and they really did not seem to care about that at all. 

She dared to open her eyes just a sliver, and found that the men had decided to leave her alone for the time being to focus on her companion. She had not yet been brought upright again, but she was positioned on such a way that she could just barely make out the other cage and the gowned men around it. She closed her eyes fully, feigned unconsciousness through long years of practice. She didn't even have to try to fool the monitors as they had removed those after the last test, apparently more concerned about giving their technology a rest than they were doing the same for their subjects, mentioning how her readings had been standard thus far and there was little need to further document. Given the noise coming from across the room, she highly doubted any change in readings would have been noticed anyway. This concerned her, but she did have to admit, if even to herself, that she would rather they focused on anything other than her for even a brief respite, even if it meant obvious pain to someone who may or may not be an actual enemy or ally.

"Begin recording," one of the men, she honestly didn't know which, directed. "I want a time stamp on cauterization or regrowth if possible." The words were troubling, both for what they could mean for the victim and what they could potentially mean for her own future should they continue to be interested in repeating their experiments with new subjects.

Both men left though, recording equipment undoubtedly in place, and the screams eventually lessened into whimpers and a seemingly unending series of questions of, "Why? What did I do? Why?" followed.

Natasha wished she could say she did the noble thing and tried to check on her fellow victim, but she did not. She was trapped, he was trapped, she was injured, and by the sounds of it he was as well. The men had left, but for how long she had no idea. She used the time to focus, to gather her reserves, to imagine just what she would do to her captors once freed. Of course, imagination was a wild thing, and barely controlled at the best of times. Given she was already physically and mentally exhausted from the combination of her recent battle and her more recent treatment, it was no surprise when her mind wandered instead to thoughts of her team.

She was still getting used to the idea of having a regular team. Well, a regular team aside from Barton. She had worked with others in the past of course, but usually only in a liaison position and nothing long term with the same people consistently. She found she rather liked the concept. They were stupidly protective, but she knew she could trust them, or at least trust in what they would do in a given situation. 

Take now for example. They would have completed the mission hours ago and she in no way doubted they would be victorious. Rogers would then request for everyone to report in, one by one. When she was silent, they would begin a search. If Barton was still in the drink, because she refused to believe he was captured and being held elsewhere because she would have felt him and she would have known and also because she simply refused to believe anything else as illogical as it was, Stark would find him with his sensors. Clint would revive and the situation would default to as before with her team beginning a search, only this time with a seriously pissed off Immortal because Clint really and truly hated to be drowned and about the only thing he hated worse than that was someone being dumb enough to take and/or harm someone he considered his. Natasha held no doubt to the matter that she fell into that category as he had declared as much before. Mix his reaction with that of their remaining teammates, and woe to be the men foolish enough to pull this particular stunt.

She took silent pleasure in imagining the consequences to these idiots' actions. She would be freed and she would make them suffer. Alternatively, should they tire of her before her team could find her, she knew her death would be avenged. She simply needed to survive as long as possible in hopes the resolution was the former rather than the latter. With that in mind, she blocked out the whimpers and attempted to regain or at least maintain her strength.

* * *

She next awoke to the sensation of being flipped upright. She would have been lying if she said she was not lightheaded from the action. She also would have been lying if she said she was in any way hopeful that her captors had changed their mind and decided to release her.

"Is the female awake?" what she now recognized as the original first man and likely superior of the other asked. The second answered in the affirmative, which made the first one sound quite pleased, almost excited even, as he said, "Good, this is a chance we have not had previously, but may serve to prove a theory I have been working on."

He stood in front of her and manually checked her pulse, apparently having decided she did not need the electrical equipment yet. That done, he moved on to her eyes and teeth like she was a broodmare - a comparison she soundly disliked - and she made the obligatory attempt to bite his fingertip off at the action. He did not act surprised, though he did manage to move out of the way in time, which spoke well of his reflexes. Perhaps she would even let him have a five second head start once freed before she killed him.

Of course that opinion changed when he moved out of the way and she was allowed gaze across at her companion. He was still unconscious or dead; she had not yet felt him revive but her own senses were notably off. He was also still bound in all ways save for one: his left hand was now free. 

She tried not to lose her nonexistent lunch at the realization of just why that hand was free. Said hand was on the table before him, the bonds not quite extending far enough to hold the resulting stump.

She wished to repeat her companion's earlier demands of knowing why they felt the need to do such a thing, but stopped herself. The men were watching her, the second one quite intently and she had the sudden feeling that he was actually the more dangerous of the two. His eyes gleamed with anticipation, with the want of a response, with the want of her panic and misery. 

The first man believed he was doing this for science. The second man was doing this because he was a sadist that had found an outlet deemed acceptable, if only by those with whom he surrounded himself with.

She schooled her expression, gave away nothing. She would not let them know she cared, not let them know that their actions had actually garnered a response of any kind, would not let them know she intended to take them apart, piece by minuscule piece, for what they had done.

The second man looked disappointed, the first man just looked bored, as though her lack of response at another's suffering was simply proof that she was less than human, simply proof that she was nothing more than a larger than normal lab rat. "Have them bring in Y3," he ordered, and the other man spoke into a radio at his side to request just that.

There was a pause, a lag time of approximately six minutes, and then two men dressed similarly to the first pushed in a cage that was not much more than a kennel for a large dog. Inside was a boy of roughly fourteen, dressed in a filthy shirt and grubby jeans. He was sweaty and pale and not exactly fresh on the senses, and he was quite clearly terrified. "Where's my dad?" the kid demanded. He pressed himself up against one side of the cage, and then the other. "You said if he did what you asked that you'd let us go!"

"You can't be that stupid, can you?" her fellow Immortal asked. It wasn't addressed to the boy though, but to the men that held him. Clearly he was actually awake, even if clearly consciousness was still a fleeting and passing concept to him.

Natasha studied the boy, took in his features and his fear, analyzed his words against memories that may or may not have been her own. She found the situation as a whole provided her with some key pieces of information.

The first was that the two men were working as part of a larger organization. She had suspected as much, but had inconclusive evidence until now. The multiple vans, the lackeys doing the heavy work, this implied a sizable group and possibly a hierarchy within it. The second realization was that others were being held elsewhere. She still refused to believe that this applied to Clint because she knew she would have felt his presence even as she felt the metal that cut into her wrists and sides. They had shared too much for anything less; she had once felt him though an avalanche, digging to free him and becoming physically dizzy when his full sense hit her even though others claimed it was the first they had felt even the slightest of sensations. The third was that the child was deemed better than her and her companion and granted the luxury of clothing, even if he had been mistreated for some other reason. 

The fourth was provided to her by supposition and false memory, even as she knew it to be true. She sensed one of her own kind within the child, though he had clearly not yet had his first death. He asked for his father, and she knew instantly that he looked for a blond man with a graying beard who had assigned himself such a role, protected the child from his own kind long enough to survive to possible adulthood, survive long enough to have a fighting chance before the monsters that pretended to be scientists found them both. She knew the man had made a deal, knew that he had known it would not be upheld but that he had to try anyway. She knew that man was dead, beheaded at the wharf, energy mingled with her own in the aftermath. He had sought them out, herself and Clint, looked for a team that might possibly be able to stop the monsters and save his surrogate child even if it cost him his own life to share such information with those who would need it.

It was then she realized she had been mistaken earlier as she was going to need to devise new and and more imaginative methods for dealing with her captors and to say they held any chance whatsoever at any sort of survival would be as much a lie as to say anyone would have any chance whatsoever to stop her.

"Don't you recognize your father's new face?" the second man taunted. He pushed at the cage, nudged it so that the front opening faced Natasha alone.

"Do not destroy the study!" the first man snapped. "I wished to see if he can tell who won based upon internal senses alone. Clearly he cannot. Perhaps it is something only those activated can do, or perhaps it is not possible at all." He tapped his masked lips in a contemplative, nervous gesture, and his eyes darted to the various equipment and the others within the room itself as if he could determine what he needed to know by will alone.

"My apologies," the second man said, his body language clearly less than apologetic. "Perhaps there is a way to determine if memories transfer fully or the being itself is reborn? If he cannot sense that his father is within her, perhaps one of their kind who knew him after activation would be able to do so? Or perhaps direct questioning could be used, answers only the original subject would be privy to?"

The first man nodded, appeased and perhaps intrigued by the scientific possibilities. "We have questioned so few," he admitted. "It was assumed we would be presented solely with lies, but with the correct context... You have provided many options for further study. I recommend you document them and we can present them for consideration."

They were talking as though their "subjects" were not even present, which rather pissed Natasha off. The Immortals, pre- and post- activation were deemed less than human, though apparently allowances were made on the chance they remained passable within society. A glance showed she was not the only one annoyed, her companion gritting his teeth and mumbling unpleasantness, and the teen openly making faces though he stopped himself from actual verbal commentary. It made her question just how long he had been held, and in what conditions.

The kid got with the program though, and looked to Natasha for the briefest of moments before blushing at her state of undress despite his misery. He turned his head again and seemed to focus on the cloth-covered shoes of their captors when he asked resignedly, "You killed him, didn't you?"

"Actually, no," she admitted. She felt the overwhelming need to protect the child, huge green eyes, ruddy skin and all, even if it served to provide their captors with some of the very information they desired. She saw flashes of him younger still than he currently was, getting into scrap fights, escaping the system and finding someone who gave him a second chance, who taught and protected and fed both mind and soul.

The boy, Andrew her mind named him, snapped his head around to look at her again, hope a living a breathing thing within him and something she unfortunately needed to crush when she told him the honest truth of, "My partner did so to protect me. I did receive a portion of your father's energy, though I know it is little solace that such a small piece of him lives on."

The scientists made noises of consideration and began both scribbling down notes and checking to make sure their recordings were working. For his part, Andrew simply tilted his head to the side in acknowledgement. She would have thought he showed no emotion, but she caught the way he quickly blinked back tears. "He tried to protect me," he said with barely a sniff. "For years, really, but when we were taken, he did everything..." He paused and took a deep breath before he turned to look at her, focusing on her eyes and not on her body or evidence of her wounds and multiple deaths within the past long hours. "Please know that he went after you for me. He thought it would help and didn't mean anything against you directly. You were just the first one he found, and..."

"I know," she agreed, even though she thought it was more than that. There were other Immortals laying about, some fairly decent and kind. He had avoided those even as he felt them pass by, his tail none the wiser. He aimed for the ones in the thick of a mission, armed and clearly able to handle themselves. Even if he chose poorly and was killed outright, his information was to be passed on. He was desperate, he held little faith in his own life and only in that of the one he wanted to protect. If he had just actually talked, spoke, explained, maybe the situation would have been handled differently, maybe she and Clint and SHIELD as a whole could have intervened. Of course, there was the incredibly high chance that he was tagged and bugged and whatever else, a kill switch for himself or the one he considered to be his child should he cross some invisible line.

She didn't blame him any more than the kid blamed her, but she did wish the situation had been handled differently.

When neither she nor the child were any more forthcoming, the scientists reluctantly stopped their data gathering and conferred. They spoke in a code of sorts, referencing plans and experiments by numbers and not names, not descriptors that she could make any sense out of. She did, however, feel that the situation had become less than fortuitous when she heard the first man muse, "It would be a chance to see if the energy is gifted to the selected with their Immortality, or if they need to obtain it for themselves by other means."

She looked across to her companion for confirmation of the absurdity she suspected as he began to flail against his bonds, far more active than he had been to any point prior. "No, don't!" he begged. "He's just a kid! You promised Greg! You told him he would be safe!"

Natasha herself showed no such emotion. She calmed and steadied herself, relaxed herself for the inevitable. She let them take samples of her blood, clip monitors to her for baseline readings, focus their cameras and whatever else they needed to wherever they needed them. The second man was a little more handsy while the first was occupied across the room, but she paid him no mind, knowing he was solely looking to get a rise out of her and that was something she refused to grant him.

Her companion was still protesting and the teen still confused when the shot went off. She felt the faint buzz of the boy's life ending, heard his gurgling final moments, and knew she would feel a stronger, different sensation once he revived. Whatever happened energy-wise was either undetectable as a whole or undetectable to the technology the men used as they expressed dismay at the lack of findings, followed by supposition as to how long it would take for the boy to revive and whether or not they should be present for it.

They remained until his first gasped breath. When he looked around and found the situation had changed precisely none, he did the reasonable thing for a recently killed and reborn teenaged boy and began to hyperventilate. The assistant tried to question him about the experience, but the lead scientist reasoned he was in no shape at the time and the effort would be wasted. Instead, he shot him again, this time with the same tranquilizer darts that had taken Natasha herself down several lifetimes ago.

With the help of the other two men who may or may not have been simple lackeys, they then removed the boy from one cage only to place him in another. They stripped him of his shirt and were working on his jeans when he twitched, and they decided security was more important, or perhaps some small part of them still saw some small part of the child as worthy, as they left the last bit of clothing on and simply locked him into a contraption like Natasha's and her current companion's.

The man Natasha had taken to mentally calling the scientist looked to his watch and commented, "We will leave him to fully revive before we begin again."

Natasha's suspicion that there was more to it than that were proven correct when she heard them discuss lunch options before she heard the creak and thud of the doors and locks being slid back into place. It did, however, advise her of two very important things: the first was an estimated timeline for the whole debacle, and the second was that she really was quite hungry. Dying always made her crave a high caloric intake, as did injuries in general. She may or may not want food after taking a head as she usually just wanted to sleep it off and then eventually awake to scrounge for something edible. It was not like she was going to die of starvation any time soon, but it was going to weaken her further as her body was forced to call on reserves that were already quite taxed.

She pushed that particular contemplation to the back of her mind as it was less than useful and instead focused on the fact that her current companion was suddenly in a talkative mood, or at least relatively so in comparison to his previous behavior. She would have been tempted to tell him that the recording equipment was still in place, but felt it was counterproductive as well as obvious. He clearly didn't care, simply broke to the point of lowering certain barriers to preserve those he found more important at the given time.

"So Greg is dead?" he asked resignedly.

They had gone over this already, but she took the opening hoping to obtain further information from him that may or may not prove useful later. Also, encouraging the friendly, communicative behavior now may build a foundation that could be used to create trust should they escape, and prove to be a source of additional assistance at that time. Besides that though, and besides the fact she had gone days with little human interaction and been perfectly fine before, she rather liked being treated as a human, as an equal, as something more than an experiment for a change. So she agreed, "He attacked me while I was vulnerable. My partner took steps to remedy the situation and the result was his death, yes."

"He just wanted to protect Andrew," the man sighed. He rubbed his head against the rusty bars, a dull clunking sound left in his wake. "He didn't mean it personal-like."

"I understand that now," she admitted. Either he would know she meant from the knowledge unraveling within her mind, or would assume it was from the boy's insistence.

Regardless of his understanding, he continued to talk, perhaps more to himself than to her, but she gathered knowledge as he did so, and perhaps the comfort of the slightest distraction from their current situation. "Greg did everything he could to protect the kid, made all sorts of promises. Told him these idiots wouldn't hold up their end of the bargain, but he thought it was worth the chance." A pause, another sigh, and then, "You said you had a partner, did they kill her getting to you?"

Natasha snorted before she could stop herself. "He, not she, and he is damned difficult to kill," she corrected. She met the man's gaze and he raised first one eyebrow questioningly, then the other when understanding set in. 

"So, he's..." he began, clearly not willing to cope with the idea Clint could be looking for them yet wanting to believe it so desperately. Of course, given that he had picked up on her subtext, it was also possible he did not wish to risk another of their kind, even for his own freedom. She appreciated him not spelling it out explicitly while cameras and other recording equipment undoubtedly churned away in the background. 

"He is most likely convening with our team to locate me and destroy those who dared such a thing as taking me, and I do not mean that falsely nor lightly," she replied. It was not hubris of self-importance that led her to say this, only a statement of fact based upon how well she knew her partner. She was also quite careful not to state said partner's name. They may have let him go before, but she could not take the risk they would target him now. "He will be quite pissed and quite determined, and that will be before he finds out they took a kid."

"'M not a kid," a groggy voice cut in.

She didn't bother to glance in that direction as it would be difficult and possibly damaging at best and she already suspected the facts of the situation. Recently killed and recently revived and recently drugged to the gills. He would be in far from prime shape right about now, to say the least. "Yes, you are, especially by our terms," she told him, not unkindly. "Try to rest before the dipshits come back and start their fun," she requested softly.

There was a huff of laughter, but it was far from light or jovial. "Dad called them dipshits too. He must really be in you."

It was precisely the reason she chose the word, but it worked to calm the boy and make him at least try to rest. Her companion looked to her knowingly though. "Not sure he'll remember any of that conversation; you were kind of in and out of it for a while before you fully woke up, too. Think it's ketamine based - Angela needed that stuff once and it was almost funny save for the injury part." He sighed, lost in thought over someone likely long gone. Eventually, he asked, "What do you do, you and this 'team' of yours?"

"Classified," she replied easily. "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

The kid huffed out another laugh, clearly having a good and morbid sense of humor, but her companion was far too serious, far too sincere, when he said, "I may be reaching the point where I take you up on that offer."

He shifted and groaned and her eyes darted to his truncated limb and then back to his face. She didn't get the chance to offer platitudes or reassurances, but she did at least listen when he explained, "They killed my Angela - I'm pretty sure of this. We were at my studio, going to go out for coffee with Kathy when they came. Angie got hit by one of their damned darts, but I managed to hide her before it knocked her out. I tried to fight. There was a spark - not sure if it was deliberate or accidental on their part - and it hit my supplies. The last thing I remember before going down was a fire and them reaching for me. I don't think they ever found her, if they even looked."

And now Natasha knew exactly when he was taken. There was a fire in the lofts on Forty-Second that made the news two weeks ago. Most escaped with minimal injury, but a single body was found, that of a middle-aged woman, tucked in a closet of all places. She had asphyxiated, the room around her well and truly torched. They had thought she might have been drunk and started the fire herself in her stupor, but the blood screens and other details had not quite lined up.

"They found her," she said, and knew he understood when he hung his head solemnly.

He didn't cry, and explained the lack of tears with, "I said my goodbyes several lifetimes ago. Thank you for at least letting me know." He sniffed tellingly though, before he took a deep breath and offered, "I'm Phillip, by the way. Phillip Arenson, or at least I am in this life. You should know that at least. Someone should know." 

He nodded and she found herself returning the action. "Natasha," she told him, not giving everything away, not even giving as much as he did, but finding a comfort in the gesture and hoping the same was gifted to him. "Phillip is a good name. I knew a very good man with that same name, and I think he'd be honored to share that with you."

"Angie and I were together thirty-seven years," he mused, ignoring or simply not registering her attempt at comfort. "Now she's gone, my life's gone, and my chance at surviving this stupid Game are gone all because some idiots got curious about our kind."

"We will get out of here," she insisted, and hoped she was telling the truth.

"And then what?" he asked. He looked to his stump of a former hand, to the kid that had fallen unconscious again, and eventually to her.

She smiled, dark and feral and letting him see only a hint of what she was capable of. "And then I destroy them, destroy this place brick by brick, and make them pay for every single thing that they have done, every single thing that they planned to do, take back every single thing that they have taken, with interest."

She expected some sort of reaction from him, some sort of rallying, but found nothing save for utter and complete defeat. "You gather your comfort from that thought because I can't, not anymore," he told her and damned if she didn't believe it. He was slumped in place, only the restraints holding him upright, skin ashen where it wasn't tainted with his own blood or pink with new growth. His eyes were hollow above the shadows, dull and lifeless and completely, totally, without hope. 

He spoke then, his recent verbiage near silence in comparison to what came now. He told her stories, memories of a better time, time with his Angie, time long before that. He painted a picture of a colorful life, dancing in and out of the shadows, playing the Game and hiding from it, living his life and finding someone to share it with. He spoke of his love of art, how he could express himself with paint and brush regardless of the century, tell his truths and hide them in fantasies. How he collected his own pieces throughout the ages and the pieces of those he was lucky enough to meet by chance or happenstance. How it was all burned to the ground with no way to rebuild it.

He said it all with no emotion, no expression, nothing save for the slightest bit of wistfulness when he spoke of the woman he had loved, the barest hint of tears when he spoke of the life they had built together.

He had lost everything save for his life itself, or so he thought. His work, his expression, his love, all taken by the monsters that held them. Even his ability to recreate, to try again, was seriously damaged with the removal of his hand, not to mention his ability to defend himself in a capable manner should he become prey to more than just some curious mortals. She tried to think of the safe spaces, the Repositories where their kind hid and meditated, those so few knew about and those who did defended the knowledge with their very lives. She herself was not privy to the specifics of every location, but she was at least known not to be a Hunter and therefore knew of those who may know more than herself and be willing to help a damaged soul. She could get him to them, give him a chance. Even if he didn't stay forever, or even long at all, maybe he would find purpose and reason again.

"I promise you, I will do whatever I can to help once we are free," she said, and meant it.

He scoffed, the most emotion he had shown in recent hours. "And if I want death? To be free of this hell of a life? Would you grant me that? You won't even tell me your real name, why would I believe you would give me more?"

And she thought of her past, her own times of darkness and loss and her struggle to find hope again, how a single annoying man made the biggest difference in her life and continued to do so to this day. How he showed her how to live again and how he introduced her to others that reinforced that belief. She looked at the man across from her now, really looked, willed him to see the truth in her eyes as she said, "I promise you that I will do everything in my power to see that you know freedom before you face a permanent death."

He met her eyes, finally, and she swore she saw relief. She wasn't sure if there was hope there yet, but it was at least a beginning. She opened her mouth to say more, but was stopped by the squeak and rumble of their captors' return.

"But imagine what we could learn!" a voice, the one she had come to know as the second man's, the assistant's, insisted. "If they do birth their own kind, which is a logical conclusion based upon pretty much every living being on this earth, maybe we could find a key to this. Just think about it: a single ovary and all the possible lives it could hold."

The scientist cut him off, but was more amused at his enthusiasm than anything else. "Your proposal has been submitted, but you must realize you would likely only assist in such matters," he warned, oddly kindly. It was one of the few true showings of emotion he had shared thus far, though Natasha herself could not support the reasoning. He was a teacher to a child, encouraging him to grow. That growth meant the torture and destruction of her kind, and there was no way the knowledge of such things couldn't taint her view. "I do agree that it would be a very important discovery, but it must be approached correctly. Prove to me, and to the ruling body, that you can handle this other task first and I will put in a good word for you."

The assistant grumbled, and she only caught, "...didn't regrow, but perhaps maybe because it was truly an external appendage. The ovary is internal, like the heart and liver that we've seen repaired already..."

"Yes, yes, you have made your argument," the other one said, now far more chiding than amused. He pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and handed his assistant a pair of his own before they donned their safety goggles. "Again, see to this task, which has both internal and external regrowth potential, document it to our standards, and it will go a long ways towards you being involved on the next project."

The man accepted the gloves and groused, "Fine. But I suppose you'll be right there monitoring me the whole time and even this will be billed as an assist?"

The first man shook his head, and Natasha had to blink to verify she was not seeing things. There was a small black dot, a standard tracer, at the collar of his scrubs where his gown did not quite reach. She looked away and back again as he moved, but found nothing and cursed herself for daring to hope, questioned how close she was to losing it and whether Phillip's plight was endangering her own or if she was now coping with Greg's stress and delusions atop her exhaustion. She was growing soft if that was the case. She never would have given into such fantasy back in her Red Room days, in her days before Barton and SHIELD and the Avengers. "This one's all yours, as promised," the scientist insisted. "I am going to run an epidermal regrowth study on the female, and then we can both run the standard series on the youth while we wait for our findings."

And she really wished she had not heard that part. For one thing, the "youth" really did not need to go through what she guessed compromised the "standard series" given her own treatment. For another, she really did not need to see the man with his completely uninterested gaze pick up one less than sterile scalpel to keep for himself and another to hand to his assistant, who immediately turned to Phillip, a look of less than scientific glee in his eyes.

Phillip didn't even fight it, not really. He growled some profanities and snapped his teeth once, but stopped as soon as the assistant threaten to either muzzle him or cut out his tongue to keep him busy, earning only a reminder of not letting his feelings get in the way as these were solely subjects and nothing more personal such as pets. The sound became muffled after that, and she had a feeling that Phillip had been gagged for the time being, mourned the loss of the closest thing she had to an understanding and commiserating voice thus far.

Natasha for her part was soon distracted from her companion's suffering by a pain all of her own. Her personal torturer sliced a shallow line down roughly three-fourths the length of her right inner forearm, bracketing it at the ends with two smaller slices, making a rough "I" shape before he began to pull back the layers with his gloved fingers, exposing muscle and blood vessels and veins. He reached to his tray and returned with two long stick pins, the type biology students used for dissections to hold the flayed skin back to examine the structure beneath, and began to push them into place, through her double layer of epidermis, her own arm providing the pin board for his needs.

She tried to look away from her own damage, tried to control her own baser reactions, but found nothing around her to provide sufficient distraction. To her side, Andrew was pretending to still be asleep, but she caught his hitch of breath, the way his closed eyes and lips tightened and the way he twitched ever so slightly against his restraints. Before her, the assistant blocked her view of Phillip, his voice muffled but no less anguished.

"You, know," her man commented, as if on nothing more important than the weather. "After we run the preliminary series on the youth, I would like to try what we were discussing yesterday. We already have approval, and he seems like a fine candidate. We would also be able to cross-check our findings with the other two, determine if the sensitivity of the spinal structure varies between sexes and those not yet exposed to the energy exchange."

"We're allowed to resume those?" the second man questioned. He seemed intrigued, giddy from either his own experiment or the chance at something likely even more dire. "I had thought they were off the table since the incident with A07 where the column was inadvertently severed and the transference to A09 wiped out most of our sensors."

"There would be precautions, of course," the first man assured him. "We may need to separate the subjects into individual holding rooms in case such an accident occurs again. Then again, perhaps it would be a test of just how far this transference of theirs travels." He slid another pin into place and ignored Natasha's involuntary flinch at the action. Her arm was on fire, every slight movement a breeze that caused liquid pain to ripple across the exposed muscle and tissue. She gritted her teeth but refused to give in to the urge make a sound, locked it down deep and hid it away with any emotion that might betray her. She was Natalia. She was trained by the Red Room, had endured far worse in her many years and this was just yet another thing to push away, to block out, to not forget but to endure until such time she could seek her vengeance. She would not give in to weakness. She would not give in to want. She had not been lessened by her time with the other agencies, only honed, her skills polished, the new knowledge melding with the old to allow her to slip and and out of the darkness the missions required with fewer tells, fewer suspicious glances. She closed her eyes, concentrated on who she was, who she had been, what she had endured, and drew strength from that if nothing else.

The second man hummed in agreement with that before he commented, "I'm done here. You wanted separate recordings of both the removed portion and the origination site, correct?"

"Yes," the first man agreed. "As you said before, there may be different factors at work given the more internal structure of the removal." There was the snap of gloves being discarded, the screech of equipment being moved into place, and then a very disappointed sigh. "The youth has revived, but is still unconscious. Did you want to wake him and begin the series, or take the time to examine your new acquisition beneath a microscope while it's still fresh?"

"The nerve endings and blood vessels were attempting to heal even as I separated them," the assistant said excitedly. "I think we may have a small window here to run tests directly on the removed piece before it becomes inert."

They stepped aside, cloth-covered shoes shuffled towards the door and away from their subjects, and Natasha took the opportunity to open her yes, to look to her companion, to reassure him, to tell him of the sanctuaries and how she may have the resources to find them, or know those who would.

Instead, the words froze on her lips as a gasp, the damage far more severe than she had imagined. Phillip spat out the cloth that had been shoved in his mouth as a gag, the fabric already soaked through with the blood that dripped freely down his cheek. She stared despite her training, perhaps because of it, because he was no longer able to. They had removed his right eye, leaving nothing but a bloody open socket, the miracle healing of Immortality struggling to cope with yet another loss.

"Do you keep your promise now?" he asked, anger fighting with resignation in his tone. "They have taken everything. I cannot, I will not survive like this."

And it was the truth. She knew it as soon as the words left his mouth. He was as good as dead, a living corpse that only knew suffering and loss and was too far gone to ever glimpse at hope again. She would not give him platitudes, so she gave him the only thing she could: her word. "I, Natalia Romanova, promise you freedom. I will fight to my dying breath to grant you at least that." 

She didn't know if she meant she would see him physically free or if she would absorb some of his energy when the next round of experiments inevitably went awry and he would experience that freedom through anything she had to give in her own life that remained. She also didn't care. She repeated the words in Russian, in Latin, in every language she could think of, creating a chant, creating the closest thing to a prayer that she dared, and when she struggled to find yet another language to use to express her remorse, he nodded, the movement slight yet caught because she would not tear her attention away from him, and he whispered, "I believe you. Natalia. Romanova. The Black Widow of history that even I have heard of. I believe you."

The silence that followed was broken only by a voice, painfully young and painfully afraid, that asked, "So there's still hope of getting the hell out of here?"

Phillip opened his mouth and she knew it was not going to be words the boy needed to hear even as she knew there was very little save for empty words and meaningless phrases that she could give him right now and she really didn't think her heart was in it. Rage, yes. Revenge, yes. Descriptions of everything she wanted to do to their captors and whoever controlled them and the precise timeline for these events, yes. Shoring up the last vestiges of hope, no.

It turned out that she didn't have to, and she was not certain if she was grateful for this or not. The men returned, apparently not having gone far as only two doors scraped and thudded, and the second man sounded extremely put out as he complained, "Now is not the time for them to play such games. They cut power to the lab! We had an actual finding and now we're going to lose it all because some idiot set off the alarms again. If it was Reynolds trying to sneak a cigarette like last week, I'm going to tear up his entire pack - and backup pack - and throw them in his face."

"This room has its own generator and we have two remaining untainted subjects we can still use, plus a source for more," the first man consoled. "At least now we know to run such a study, and to look for these details that you..." He stopped himself mid-sentence and cocked his head to the side curiously. There was the creak and rumble of one of the outer doors and he sighed dramatically. "They know we are not to be disturbed when we are with our subjects, alarms or no. They can take up stations outside in the corridor and request entrance to review the power issue if need be. If they contaminate the findings with their-"

Anything else he was going to say was cut off by the slamming open of the final door and the pounding of footsteps. There were shouts to get down, to put down their weapons though they held none, to move away from the cages. And she had to be seeing things, had to be hearing things, had to be having a full on hallucination, because she swore she heard Clint, so familiar and so utterly pissed, demand, "Give me a fucking reason, asshole."

There was a flash of colors, black and red and blue, and then a voice, a different voice, one she recognized and knew and couldn't remember because it was probably all lies anyway, nothing more real than the vision of the tracker from earlier, ordered, "Keep Banner back. The last thing we need is to add the Hulk to this mess."

There was shuffling and profanity and threats and voices familiar and foreign, things she knew she should know even as she denied their very existence as want over reality, dreams over substance.

And then there were hands and they were real and they were covered with leather and polymer until they weren't and they were touching her face, warm against her chilled cheeks. "Widow? Natasha? Are you with us?" She tried to focus her eyes but saw only blue, the image streaked and smeared despite the fact she knew she was not crying as she would never be so weak. A hand moved and the blue was gone, replaced with a face framed with shock of blond, a face she knew and trusted, and Steve swallowed heavily and she could smell the bile on his breath when he shouted, panicked and horrified and still so real, "Someone get her out of this thing!"

She forced her words out, focused on what she knew, what had to be true. If Steve was here, if her team was truly here, they would know, they would understand. They were not Red Room. They were SHIELD, they were Avengers. If she made this request of them, they would comply, they would not just take her and go, resource obtained and detritus left behind. 

"Get... them... out..."

"The pins?" Steve asked. "Are they...? Of course they're hurting you. We need a doctor though, someone should see... should see to that for you. Someone who won't cause more harm than good." He was stuttering and unsure and possibly terrified and that was not the Steve Rogers she knew. It made her question reality again despite the touch and smell and sounds that were so very right.

And there was red, shiny and metal and bright at the edge of her vision. "Forget the pins, get her and the others out of those damned things now!" Tony demanded through the suit, voice digitized and modulated and home.

He snapped one restraint and Thor and Steve worked on the others and she collapsed forward, Barton suddenly there and real and familiar and holding her upright despite her not having sensed him through the barrage of other Immortals, despite the overwhelming want to just melt into the floor. "Nat?" he asked. He had no such compunctions as Rogers, and easily plucked the pins from her arm and tossed them away, the pain sharp and biting, the trust that her healing ability would take care of anything that remained.

She pushed herself away from him though. As much as she wanted his comfort, his strength and his ability to ground her in the most absurd of situations, she pushed him away. "Get them out," she repeated.

Thor tore apart Phillip's cage and Steve moved to catch him, brace him as he fell forward and did nothing to try to stop himself. With Thor and Tony moving on to Andrew's release and Clint still hovering next to her, the second man, the assistant, saw his chance and took it. He lunged for the short sword that rested amongst all the other bloodied implements, wrapped a hand around the pommel, and slashed forward at anything and everything. 

Clint moved to stop him, but Natasha was there first, a broken length of jagged metal from Phillip's cage used to parry and disarm, sword caught midair in her left hand and then driven deep into the man's gut with no small amount of satisfaction. She turned to Phillip, saw the way his hand, his only hand, clutched at his throat, fingers red and slick with blood, themselves sliced nearly through even as they attempted to hold what little bit of himself remained together. He looked to her, didn't even blink at Steve's call for medics, and instead coughed and spat more red to the already stained floor. He grunted, half-moaned and half-spoke as he demanded, "Keep your promise, Romanova."

Natasha switched her grip on the blade, used both hands to steady her admittedly shaky grasp. "Get Clint and the kid out of here," she ordered, sword already arcing upwards in a swing above her head.

"Nat?" Clint questioned. He stopped closer, hands out placatingly, entreatingly, trying to reason with her when such things were long since possible.

But Steve was there, understanding if not agreeing. He pushed Clint back, pushed Tony closer to the door. "Hawkeye, Iron Man, out. Take the kid and go to the first chamber with Bruce, close the doors behind you," he ordered. And that was good, that was thoughtful, because she doubted the electrical storm that was about to overtake the room would be good for Tony's armor and her mind was far too exhausted to have remembered such matters.

"Nat?" Clint tried again.

She looked to him, willed him to understand, willed him to hurry because she wasn't sure she could hold herself together much longer. "Warsaw," was all she said.

And it was enough. It was enough for Clint to nod, to jog out with Tony and the kid on his heels, for him to slam the protective barriers into place behind them, for him to trust that she knew what she was doing.

Only Steve and Thor and the scientists remained, one dead and gone and one pleading to be let go. Steve had seen a transfer before, and she was certain Thor had witnessed the equivalent whether he ever mentioned it directly or not. "Do we need to protect this one?" Thor asked, a look of disdain thrown in the direction of the whimpering man.

"He wanted to know what we were, wanted to study everything about us. Let him learn," she replied. Her voice held no emotion because she could find none to express. She was angry, she was resigned, but most of all she was simply raw. She felt nothing save for a duty to complete a given task; she would deal with the aftermath if and when she was granted the ability to do so.

The whimperer paled but quieted, and her teammates stepped back as much as they could in the confinements of the room, bearing witness and offering silent support as she had refused the more vocal kind. She looked to Phillip, verified one last time that this was what he wanted, what he desired, even though he had declared such already, even though she knew it to be true to her very bones.

The little bit that remained of the man she barely knew met her gaze, anguish fading to be replaced by something that could only be described as relief. "I, Phillip Arenson, also known as Arron Phillips, also known by names long since forgotten, maintain my request," he told her.

"And I, Natalia Romanova, uphold my promises," she replied.

Without further ceremony or hesitation, she swung the blade downward, felt it slice through flesh and bone and sinew, felt it crash through it all and into the cement, and then felt her own body crash beside it. She had to give Steve and Thor credit though, as neither tried to haul her upright, not yet, not when the energy, that which was left after so many healings in so short of time had taken their toll, was still unspooling from the being beside her.

Phillip was strong. At one point in his life he had been mighty. He had taken heads and lived and did far more than protect himself until he came to the realization that there was more to life than the crave for battle, the want for victory. His lifetimes poured into her, and she tried to pay attention to each and every one, to give them the attention and respect that they deserved. Throughout it all, she found a love of beauty, a love of creation, a love of sharing the life he had been granted with those he cared about, even as each and every one inevitably fell by the wayside. He had almost given up before, and then Angela wandered into his life and made him a changed man, gave him reason again, gave him hope. Her death, and the destruction of everything that he saw as his ability to create again, had driven him not to darkness, but to desolation.

This she saw. This she felt. This she lived through in a matter of moments as sparks of power wove their way through her, wracked her body with spasms that she did not even attempt to control. There was screaming, anguished and pained and it sounded like her own voice. That she tried to stop, tried to prevent her teammates from having to witness, tried to prevent her teammates from assuming it was from something more than the transfer.

The shocks began to subside and she forced open eyes she didn't remember closing, saw tendrils of white and blue dance along the cart of tools and the remains of the cages, feed themselves into the most damaged places of her physical body and try to heal them that much faster. She dropped the sword, the metal foreign in her hands, hands that now braced themselves on cement, sticky and warm with yet another life taken.

She jolted at the first touch along her shivering skin, tried to fight it until she recognized the strength. Thor held her, cradled her close, did everything save for rock her like a small child. He didn't seem to mind that she covered his spotless armor with blood and gore, tucked her aching limbs into a more comfortable position even as Steve hovered, hand raised but unsure just what to do, what to touch, what would be accepted. He settled for pushing knotted hair out of her eyes and resting gentle fingertips on her shoulder, offering the support she was not sure she had the right to take.

"It is done," Thor told her, voice kind. "You are free."

He lifted her slowly and settled her on her feet, gave her the opportunity to rely on him or stand on her own. She let go of the death grip she had on his arms, but still leaned against him, appreciating the silent gift of physicality even if she couldn't find the words to express the sentiment quite yet.

There was the rumble of the door sliding open and she tensed despite herself, despite the fact that she could now feel Barton's presence on the other side. She stumbled stepped towards him, could feel both Thor and Steve at her side ready to catch her if needed. He held out a blanket he had found somewhere despite the rows of surgical gowns she could see behind him, comfort a learned thing in their lives. She let him wrap it around her, but did not stop walking until she crossed the threshold, until she passed through the series of doors to stand out in a corridor that was kept open and free by the force of Bruce and Tony's will alone.

She turned to watch Steve step through after her, and Thor grapple with an extremely docile and slightly singed scientist behind him. There was movement though, in the room that had held so much death. The assistant sat slowly upright, hands tracing his non-existent wound, the expediency of which a gift from the one he had taken so much from, before he shook with laughter, flung his mask to the side, and started chanting that he knew it, knew that he was one of the "chosen," knew that he had a mission in this world and had been gifted with the ability to see it through. 

"Widow?" Steve asked incredulously.

Clint was having none of it though, sword pulled from its compartment in his quiver, already striding forward to seek his version of justice. He stopped though, at her touch, just the most gentle brush of her fingertips against him. He looked to her bloodstained hand where it rested on his forearm and then raised his eyes to meet hers. She shook her head, slow and deliberate. "You don't want that in you," she warned.

There was a shatter of sound behind her, Andrew trying to break free from where Tony and Bruce held him in place. "I'll do it! I'll do it in my father's name!" he insisted. He was still pale, still filthy and tiny and teeming with life, the sort of which he had never had the opportunity to take from another and she'd rather like to keep it that way for longer.

It was Stark of all people that got him to see reason though. "If she thinks that asshole over there couldn't take the doc's level of crazy, I'm guessing you'd have no chance," he reasoned.

Bruce nodded and offered a quiet, "Every life you take becomes part of you. Ask yourself what you want to become."

"I want to be the sort of man my father would be proud of," Andrew said, albeit reluctantly. He stilled, bony shoulders slouched and streaks of dampness across the filth that was his face, but added, "He doesn't deserve to live, though. If my father didn't, he sure as hell doesn't."

Clint handed Natasha his sword, though she knew he wasn't offering her the chance to end it herself. Instead, he took a single arrow from his arsenal, spun it slow and sure in front of him, let her see the markings, the type, the way it was far from standard, and asked, "Acceptable?"

Thor and Steve got with the program quickly, and in moments stood ready at the sides of the sliding doors. The assistant stood now, moved slowly towards them, not understanding and not needing to. A single shot felled him, the blades snapping forward from the arrow shaft as the heavy metal doors slammed shut.

"How long do we need to wait to make sure it's safe?" Tony asked.

"Doesn't matter," Natasha replied. She could feel the death, the want of the energy to escape and join with someone, anyone, who could accept it. She could also feel the conscious effort it took each and every one of them not to give in to that instinct. The sword was heavy in her hand, too heavy, really. It would be so easy to drop it, just as it would be easy to stride forward and accept the madness held back by layers of steel. She needed to be unconscious, and soon, but there was one more thing she needed to be sure of first. "We're going to burn this place to the ground anyway."

Clint wrapped an arm around her, taking her weight and everything she couldn't mention. "And salt the fucking ashes," he added. There was a reason they had been together so long.

"Amen to that," Andrew chimed in.

And yet none of them moved, not for a long time, not until she was ready, not that she truly was when she put one aching foot in front of the other and began the long walk home.

* * *

"Andrew's safe," Clint assured her. It was not the first time he had done so and would likely not be the last. He climbed up onto the mattress and slid behind her, weight warm and comforting, arm looped loose around her middle, blankets a mess around them both.

She nodded, eyes open but unseeing. "Sam will be good for him," she agreed. She blinked, but the darkness didn't recede. "Good to him," she corrected.

"Both," Clint shrugged. He hooked his chin over her shoulder and looked out at the nothing with her. His fingers brushed the unblemished skin of her arm, still over-sensitive but whole.

He had already explained how they found her, and why it had taken so long to do so. Her comm had not been as completely fried as she thought, and her captors too stupid to understand that fact, but smart enough to have their base in a location that blocked most signals. Her intermittent, dampened signal from where her gear was dumped two buildings away meant finding her was not the most expedient of processes, and each and every teammate had apologized repeatedly for the delay. As if they were at fault. As if she were not grateful for the rescue. As if she were not resentful that she needed such a thing at all.

They had let her sleep for the majority of a day, JARVIS undoubtedly monitoring her vitals throughout, and then had been at her beck and call to obtain anything and everything she may wish to consume save for the contents of a certain clear bottle tucked away in her bedside table they knew nothing about. Clint had given them two days before shooing them all away and claiming her for his own, not that he had ever left her side in the first place. He found that bottle and a couple of glasses that went unused, and they had made their way through both it and the leftover lo mien over the course of the past few hours.

"I still don't understand why," she admitted. She shifted to press more of her weight against him, relished the heat of his body despite the climate controlled temperature of the room.

"Because people are assholes," he immediately answered. A pause, and then he amended, "People are curious assholes and you, my dear, are an oddity."

She huffed out a breath and muttered, "Well, I certainly wasn't human, at least not to them."

"Either were they," he replied, nonplussed.

"I..." she started, but trailed off, lips still parted, words lost before they could even hang in the air. She was possibly beginning to dislike the whole lack of surety thing more than anything else. This was not her. This was the remnants of someone taken to the brink, someone who looked into the black emptiness of the other side and found it welcoming instead of abhorrent.

Clint didn't give her a chance to second guess herself again though. He gave her the truth as he saw it and willed her to see it his way, to trust his eyes in case her own had failed. "They are assholes," he repeated. "They are assholes working for an asshole organization that is currently being sniffed out and snuffed out piece by ever-loving fucking piece. Because they didn't just go after one of our kind, they went after one of _us_. They went after an Avenger, and I have to say, the team takes a lot of fucking offense to that."

"Tony?" she guessed, wary. 

"To start with," he agreed. "I could be all noble and say it's because they took you out of a battle and put the rest of the team at risk, but it's more than that. They took _you_. They took you and tried to take your humanity away. And if Stark or Cap or, fuck, even SHIELD itself has the means to burn them to the ground, all of them, anyone associated with this atrocity of an organization, I say carry the matches because I've got the gasoline."

She turned slightly in his arms, meaning to be chiding as she said, "But the Game..."

"Fuck the Game, Nat," he growled. And he was pissed, emotion threatening to fuel her own, to make her feel again after promising herself she was past that stage, after promising herself she could compartmentalize and cope on her own terms without such needless displays. "This is life. This is the world. This is the world with alien gods and magic and killer robots and portals to other universes and, really, a couple of old timers are the least of anyone's worries. They don't own us, they can't control us, and they sure as hell aren't going to force us out or make us scurry in some fucking shadow."

She smiled, just a flit of her lips, but it was there. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and said, "Thank you."

She lay back down on the pillow that had been her home for most of the past few days, and gazed out across the room, the books and furniture finally taking on the colors of the broken supplies that lay scattered on the floor, the pages of discarded sketchbooks crumpled around her. Clint was succeeding where she herself failed; he was letting her borrow hope from his own reserves when she had had none to spare for Phillip and let him fade away thinking he had nothing left to give. 

Her hand gripped a broken bit of pencil left near her head, the graphite smearing across her thumb. Phillip had been wrong though, because he had something left to give after all. He had given her everything that made him who he was, everything their captors could not find and could not understand and would not have been able to take away even if they had known it existed. Her head filled with stories and history and more colors than she could have ever imagined. It might not have been the gift he intended, but it was a legacy she would be proud to carry.


End file.
